These common Rocky Mountain butterflies can be seen fluttering around meadows and forests. Here are 6 common butterflies you are likely to see in the Rockies.

I love seeing all aspects of the natural world when I go exploring the Rocky Mountains.  It’s exciting to see a big mammal, like a moose.  But, it’s equally cool to see some lovely butterflies flying around a field of wildflowers.  Butterflies are so tiny and fragile and are adored by kids.  I really got to know the butterflies well because my kids loved them so much.  Here are 6 common Rocky Mountain Butterflies.

6 Common Rocky Mountain Butterflies

Monarch Butterfly

This is a large butterfly with a wingspan of 3-4 inches.

These butterflies are most well known for their incredible migration.  Every winter in the northern hemisphere these tiny animals travel from Canada and the US south into Mexico and Central America.  Then in the spring they return back north to the Rocky Mountains, among other places.

You can read this to learn more facts about Monarch butterflies.

Painted Lady Butterfly

This is a medium sized butterfly with a wingspan of 2 inches.  This is a very common butterfly and is the one used in kits to grow butterflies from a chrysalis.

The Painted Lady has a very short lifespan.  It goes through it’s entire lifecycle from a caterpillar to adult butterfly in about one month.

Learn more about Painted Lady butterflies here.

Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly

This is such a cool butterfly.  This big butterfly, with a wingspan of 3 – 4 inches, has two long tails that come down from the bottom part of its wing, one for each wing.

There are several types of these swallowtails (with the two long tails) with similar yellow and black coloring.  Learn more about the Western Tiger Swallowtail here.

Cabbage White Butterfly

The cabbage white butterfly is a small (1 1/2 to 2 inch wingspan), plain looking butterfly that often gets overlooked by its more colorful relatives.  This is the most common butterfly in the USA.  It can be seen in parks, open fields, gardens, roadsides, and among crops.  See the photo at the top of this post for a picture of the Cabbage White.

Learn some cool facts about the Cabbage White Butterfly here.

Mourning Cloak Butterfly

This large butterfly (wingspan up to 3 1/2 inches) is a tough, long lived adult.  Many of the other butterflies in the Rockies either migrate south during winter or spend winter as a larvae.  Not this one.

The Mourning Cloak stays in the Rockies all winter long.  It will find a hole in a tree or crawl under some bark and rest all winter long in their adult form.  Then in the spring they emerge and have a  head start over all those butterflies migrating back north.

This explains why in the spring you will often see some Mourning Cloak butterflies that look ragged or tattered.    Learn more about Mourning Cloaks here.

Spring Azure Butterfly

This is a tiny butterfly (wingspan 1 inch) that is common, but often overlooked or unnoticed due to its pale coloring.  It is a pale blue color on the top of its wings and grayish/white on the bottom with many small black spots.

The adult butterfly lives for only a few days before breeding and dying.

It can be seen flying from April through to June in the Rocky Mountains.

More Butterfly Facts

Here a couple of other posts another post you can check out If you want to learn some more about butterflies in general.

Read this to learn how to tell apart a moth and butterfly.

Or check this out if you want to learn more about that crazy, long tongue (proboscis) butterflies use to drink nectar from flowers.